


Late Night

by alienchampion



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Anxiety, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sickfic, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 01:17:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14727215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienchampion/pseuds/alienchampion
Summary: He tries to ignore it for as long as he can, eyes shut tight in defiance of his own silly impulses. He can feel John’s back against his own, can feel his warmth radiating through both of their t-shirts, and he’s almost certain that Adam is tucked in John’s arms like he is every night. But it’s that ‘almost’ that makes his pulse pound in his throat and eventually give in.He just… has to be sure.





	Late Night

**Author's Note:**

> "AU where someone offhandedly tells big boss that being a park ranger is, y'know, a job you can do instead of killing some time in the 70s so he throws in the towel on the whole motherbase thing and packs up ocelot and kaz to wyoming or utah to live his truth"
> 
> Big thanks to J for listening to me yell about Metal Gear at all hours of the night <3
> 
> Edit 12/3/18: Made some tiny grammar and wording changes bc im a terrible perfectionist who cant leave things alone. Enjoy!

The clock on his bedside table flips over to 3:27, the blocky white numbers barely visible in the dark.

Kaz buries his face in his pillows and groans. This happens more often than he cares for. Something will wake him up in the middle of the night, whether it’s John’s shuffling or a car alarm on the street or any other tiny noise, and Kaz ends up having to coax himself back to sleep and pray it doesn’t happen again. Some nights, though, he can’t seem to fall asleep until he’s made sure John and Adam are safe by his side. Judging by the anxiety mounting in his chest that grows more insistent the longer he’s awake, tonight is one of those nights. It’s an old urge, a holdover from the days when things like living to see another day weren't as guaranteed.

He tries to ignore it for as long as he can, shuts his eyes tight and tries to push the intrusive thoughts out of his head. He can feel John’s back pressing against his own, his warmth radiating through both of their t-shirts. He’s certain that Adam’s tucked in John’s arms like he is every night, can picture it in his head clear as day. 

He just... has to be sure.

As his eyes adjust to the darkness, Kaz takes in the state of their bed. John has pushed Kaz to the very edge of his side and it looks like he’s stolen most of Adam’s blankets. It makes Kaz smile as he stares at John’s back in the dark until he’s positive he’s breathing. The tight ball of worry in his chest loosens just a bit and gives way to a soft fondness—he could almost to laugh at how ridiculous he’s being if doing so wouldn’t risk dragging someone else into this miserable state of awareness—but he still moves to prop himself up on his side to peer over at Adam.

It’s dark enough that for a second he thinks the bundle of blankets John has managed to wrap himself around is Adam, but longer he looks the surer that the other side of the bed is empty.

Kaz tries to keep himself calm. It’s not a big deal, Adam’s sleeplessness is just as bad as Kaz’s own at times and some nights it gets bad enough that he’ll give up on trying to get to sleep and go read in the living room. The rational part of Kaz’s brain tries to convince itself that it’s fine, everything’s fine, but it’s the irrational part that wins out once again and he’s up on his feet without thinking. 

Sometimes Adam likes to have someone to sit with on nights like these, and if Kaz can tell himself that this is just about having some late night company this whole thing will feel a lot less embarrassing. 

He takes another look at John, oblivious to the of the before slipping out of their room and into the hallway. 

In the dark, Kaz’s worry turns even the smallest thing out of place into evidence that something is horribly wrong. The hall closet door hangs open and the one of the few pictures they’ve bothered to hang up in all the months they’ve been here—the one of them right after they moved in, taken on the beat up polaroid Kaz picked up at the thrift store in town—looks crooked on the wall. Countless scenarios of what could’ve happened here run through his head, despite knowing that the door never stays closed or that John’s broad shoulders have knocked into that picture more times than he can count. 

The lights in the living room aren’t on, Kaz can tell as much from the hallway, and he’s starting to feel nauseous. They’ve had an unbelievably quiet few first year here, hidden away from Zero and the rest of the Patriots out in the boonies, but Kaz doubts that any of them will ever really stop looking over their shoulders. He still half expects to wake up with a gun to his head or to never wake up at all. His heart is caught in his throat by the time he sees that the TV is off, too, and that Adam hasn’t just fallen back to sleep on the couch. He balls his hands in his shirt to stop them from shaking and forces himself to breathe. 

His quick look into the kitchen only makes it worse. Two cabinets hang wide open and there’s something wet on the floor. This was definitely not there when they went to bed and terror grips him harder at this than any other time tonight. Adam and Kaz’s (completely justified) paranoia and John’s (well appreciated) habit of being prepared for anything means there’s at least one weapon hidden in every room of their apartment, and Kaz knows there’s a gun taped to the inside of one of those cabinets. If someone came after Adam in here, that would be the first thing he’d go for. 

Fuck.

He has to wake up John. Neither of them heard any noise, true, but Zero could’ve sent someone—an assassin, maybe, someone quiet—to catch them off guard. In every horrible scenario he’s ever come up with at night at least they had always been together, but he realizes now that Zero’s enough of a bastard to separate them—let Kaz and John have their normal life at the cost of the man who made it all possible in the first place, the third piece to their shitty, dysfunctional puzzle.

It doesn’t matter that the front door was still locked when he checked it or that he can try to be as quiet as possible but Adam still knows when Kaz even thinks about sneaking up on him. It doesn’t matter that there would be some noise, any noise; even if the attacker got the jump on him, Adam wouldn’t go down quietly. None of it matters because Kaz is stumbling his way back through the living room and the hall, nearly tripping over the coffee table in his mad dash back to the bedroom. Snake will have contacts—hell, Kaz is already running down his own mental list of phone numbers and offshore bank accounts that might be able to help them get Ocelot back before anything irreversible happens. They’ll have to be fast, but when Snake wants something it takes hell to stop him.

Kaz is about to throw open the door to the bedroom when he notices a glow coming from underneath the bathroom door down the hall.

He freezes. He hadn’t seen it before, too caught up in his single-minded search of the front of the house, but now it seems so obvious; the bright light cutting through the dark with itobnoxious glow. 

His entire chest feels tight. The holes in his most recent train of thought come into focus so fast it’s dizzying but it’s not enough to settle him completely. Ocelot couldn’t go down without a fight if there was none to be had in the first place, if he was just using the damn bathroom like a normal human who doesn’t have to worry about one of their partners being murdered in their sleep. The lights are off in the living room because he never went in there in the first place and the cabinets are open because Snake—no, John was raised in a barn and forgets things like that all the time. Kaz slowly releases his hold on the doorknob and he blinks at the light like he’s afraid it’ll disappear, but it stubbornly, thankfully, stays on. 

There’s a lump forming in his throat, one made of equal parts shame and lingering fear. The need to be sure that there’s no gruesome scene behind that door is still at nagging him, and Kaz has done enough mental gymnastics tonight to be too tired to try and fight it. He takes an embarrassingly shaky breath and creeps down the hallway until his ear is practically pressed up against the door. 

He has one hand on the door handle and the other raised to knock. He licks his lips and asks, “Adam?”

The answer he gets comes in the form of retching, slicing right through the tension Kaz had created for himself. Kaz can make out the faint sound of sniffling followed by a flush of the toilet and an uncharacteristically weak, “in here.”

Kaz eases the door open and winces at the light, his glasses still on the bedside table, but relief floods his system when he sees Adam hunched over the toilet, pale but in one piece. He looks up at Kaz with tired eyes as he wipes his face with a handful of tissue.

By the looks of it, Adam’s been camped out in here for quite a while. He’s dragged in one of his pillows and there’s a mostly empty glass of water sitting up on the sink. It looks like he’s been using a towel as a blanket, too, and if Kaz was in a better state of mind he might’ve laughed at the pitiful picture in front of him. Right now he’s just happy that Adam is alive. He swallows. “Bad night, huh?” 

Adam’s eye roll is half-assed at best. “I’ve been having a wonderful time, actually. Who knew tile could be so comfortable?” Kaz snorts at his petulant tone but kneels down at Adam’s side anyway. If Adam will ignore the waver in his voice, Kaz will ignore his attitude.

He pushes Adam’s bangs back to press a hand to his sweaty forehead, heat radiating off of his skin. Kaz presses his hand on Adam’s cheek for good measure, and he almost automatically presses into the touch, his eyes sliding closed just a fraction. “Withdrawal?”

Another sudden heave has Kaz pulling his hand away in a hurry, but the grimace Adam makes afterward is clearly meant for Kaz. “Most physical symptoms of withdrawal subside in six to ten days, Miller,” he snaps, and any bite it might’ve had is lost in how exhausted he sounds. Maybe that look wasn’t meant for him after all, because Adam is eyeing the toilet like a particularly dangerous enemy. “You know how long I’ve been clean.”

He does. John had convinced Adam to give up his ‘drug resistance training’ for the sake of their new, normal life, and the two weeks afterward had been mess of hallucinations and vomit, but he hasn’t strayed since, and if Kaz wasn’t sure all he’d get in return would be a raised eyebrow he’d tell Adam how proud he is of that. 

Instead, he chooses to laugh at his whiny tone. He’d learned in those two weeks that Adam’s first response to not feeling well is to get defensive. “Well, Ocelot, feels like you have a fever.”

“Astute observation,” Adam says. He reaches for the glass of water and swishes around the last of in his mouth before he spits it out into the toilet. When he looks up and sees that Kaz is still crouched next to him, he sighs. “You can go back to bed. I don't think I’ll be going anywhere soon.”

Kaz won’t be doing that. There’s still a low thrum of panic in the back of his mind and he’s not quite ready to let Adam out of his sight. Instead, he takes the empty glass from Adam’s hand and sets it back on the sink. He makes Adam sit up he can slide in between him and the wall. Adam squints at him in confusion, but Kaz is already easing him back with two gentle hands until he’s resting against Kaz’s chest. “And let you have all the late night fun? Nah, I think I’ll keep you company.”

“Don’t come crying to me when you end up sick then,” Adam says, but he doesn’t fight. Kaz’s warmth chases away the chill of the tile floor and soon enough he’s relaxing to Kaz’s hold, letting his head lull back against the warm body behind him. 

It doesn’t take long for Kaz to start to relax, too, with the knowledge that Adam is here in his arms and John’s sleeping soundly a room over. He presses a kiss to the side of Adam’s head and slides a hand up under his shirt to rub easy circles over his stomach. Both of his boys are fine and alive and safe for another night.

They sit like that until Kaz’s eyes start to drift closed. He’s beginning to think he might just fall asleep and catch an extra twenty minutes so he isn’t dog tired in the morning when Adam says, “didn’t mean to worry you.”

Oh. And here he thought he’d hid it pretty well. Should’ve known Adam would see through it anyway. “Not your fault,” he mumbles in return. “Just happens sometimes. Don’t worry about it.”

Adam just hums, and what that’s supposed to mean, Kaz can’t tell. He still intertwines his fingers with Adam’s when a scared hand covers his own, though, and pushes Adam’s bangs back again with the other. This close he can see strands of white hidden among the blond and he wonders how long it’ll be until all of his hair is like that. He wonders if they’ll all still be around to see it. 

“So that’s where you two went.” 

Standing in the doorway is a tired-looking John, squinting down at the two of them. Adam briefly cracks open an eye at the sound of his voice but almost instantly goes back to resting against Kaz, who just flashes him a smile. “Sorry,” he says. “Looks like that steak you made isn’t sitting very well with Adam.”

John frowns. “My steak? What was wrong with it?”

This gets a response out of Adam, who even bothers to sit up slightly to glare at John. “It was practically still breathing.” 

That makes John look even more confused, and Kaz tries in vain to hide the grin breaking out across his face in the top of Adam’s head. “Not everyone has the immune system of a garbage disposal.”

“You wanna cook something next time, be my guest.” John leans up against the doorframe. “Are the two of you sleeping on the floor tonight or do I have to share the bed again?”

Adam stretches his arms out above his head. “I think I’ve had enough of laying on the bathroom floor for one night. Unless Kaz has any objections.”

“And let the two of you get too comfortable?” He grins, helping Adam to his feet. He still looks a little pale, but Kaz figures he knows what he can handle. “Not a chance.”

Kaz hits the light on the way out of the bathroom and watches John pull Adam into a one-armed hug on their way back to the bedroom. He feels… Good. Content. When John throws an arm over his side and pulls him close under the covers, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, this will work out for them. 

John’s beard scratches against the back of his neck. “You alright?”

Yeah.

Yeah, he is.

**Author's Note:**

> Domestic fluff usually isn't my cup of tea when it comes to writing but I just kept coming back to it and now here it is, all shiny and finished. I wanted make this as realistic as it could possibly be considering it relies on Big Boss giving up on being a Big Asshole and chillin in the mountains with Ocelot and Kaz instead, and I'm fairly happy with how it turned out.


End file.
